I have a few comments.
1) Editorial: in the abstract, "in inherent" => "inherent"
2) In section 1 "Introduction" appears the expression"logical
representation". This is somewhat of an oxymoron IMHO. Usually, "logical"
goes with "order" and "representation" goes with "visual".
In the same paragraph, the expression "digital representation" is unclear
to me.
I suggest the following:
<suggested text>
IRIs containing these characters (called bidirectional IRIs or Bidi IRIs)
require additional attention because of the non-trivial relation between
the logical order (used for storage, transmission and for
reading/spelling) and the visual order (used for display/printing).
Because of the complex interaction between the logical order, the visual
representation, and the syntax of a Bidi IRI, a balance is needed between
various requirements. The main requirements are
1. user-predictable conversion from logical order to visual
representation and vice versa;
<end of suggested text>
3) In section 2 "Logical Storage and Visual Presentation": the term
"presentation" is used here versus "representation" in section 1. I
suggest to use "presentation" uniformly.
4) In the same section 2, we find the sentence:
<quote>
Also, a bidirectional relative IRI reference that only contains strong
right-to-left characters and weak characters and that starts and ends with
a strong right-to-left character and appears in a text with right-to-left
base directionality (such as used for Arabic or Hebrew) and is preceded
and followed by whitespace and strong characters does not need an
embedding.
<end of quote>
It seems to me that the same conclusion (does not need an embedding) holds
whether the IRI appears in a text with RTL or LTR base directionality.
5) In section 4 "Input of Bidi IRIs", we find the sentence:
<quote>
During input, rendering SHOULD be updated after every new character is
input to avoid end-user confusion.
<end of quote>
This assumes optimistically that updating the rendering after every new
character is enough to avoid end-user confusion. I suggest to replace
"avoid" by "reduce" or "minimize".
6) In section 7 "Security Considerations", we find the sentence:
<quote>
Confusion can occur with bidirectional IRIs, if the restrictions in
Section 3 are not followed.
<end of quote>
This seems to imply that following the restrictions in section 3 is
enough to prevent confusion. Unfortunately, this is not true. In example
10, the same visual presentation could result from a different logical
representation:
"http://ab.123.CDEFGH/kl/mn/op.html"
Shalom (Regards), Mati
Bidi Architect
Globalization Center Of Competency - Bidirectional Scripts
IBM Israel
Fax: +972 2 5870333 Mobile: +972 52 2554160